Some serious nostalgia set in when I read Chris Kamka’s recent post on the 1990 Pacific Senior League set, and the dosage was doubled when I looked up the full checklist on Trading Card Database. The Senior League players, coaches, and managers in the set were not simply players I watched growing up. More importantly, they were the names I collected, sorted, and idolized when I began my lifelong obsession with cardboard back in 1978.
As the mind has a way of playing tricks more than four decades later–I could have sworn John D’Acquisto have a 1978 Topps card!–I decided to check my foggy memories against the honest to goodness 1978 Topps checklist. Or in the parlance of the SABR Baseball Cards blog, I did a Cardboard Crosswalk!
John D’Acquisto aside, my memory wasn’t so bad after all. More than half the cards in the 1990 Pacific set (122 out of 220) feature players or managers from 1978 Topps. Leading the way were the Fort Myers Sun Sox, with 22 of the 29 cards in the Pacific set having 1978 Topps predecessors.
While the Sun Sox were clearly the frontrunners, the other seven teams in the Senior League were all represented with 1978 Topps ancestry.
- St. Petersburg Pelicans – 16
- Bradenton Explorers – 16
- St. Lucie Legends – 15
- Winter Haven Super Sox – 14
- Orlando Juice – 14
- West Palm Beach Tropics – 13
- Gold Coast Suns – 13
I also organized the crosswalk by 1978 Topps team. Most of the 1978 Topps team sets contributed 4-5 players to the Senior League set, paced by the Cleveland Indians with 10 (or 11 if we count Dobson twice).
At the other end of the spectrum, one team from 1978 Topps, the Minnesota Twins, contributed no players at all.
Something that may have already caught your eye from the various graphics presented is the large number of 1978 Indians who were also 1990 Sun Sox.
The 1990 Pacific Senior League set featured additional 1978 Topps reunions, which I’ll define here as groups of at least three players who were teammates in both sets.
The same Sun Sox also included three 1978 Topps A’s (Steve McCatty, Tim Hosley, Joe Coleman) and three Royals (Amos Otis, Dennis Leonard, Doug Bird). Meanwhile, the St. Petersburg Pelicans reunited four players from the 1978 Topps Mets checklist (Steve Henderson, John Matlack, Lenny Randle, and Pat Zachry), three 1978 Phillies (Jerry Martin, Randy Lerch, Bake McBride), and three Tigers (Ron LeFlore, Steve Kemp, Milt Wilcox). Finally, three members of the 1978 Topps Pirates family (Bruce Kison, Omar Moreno, Al Oliver) got back together on the Bradenton Explorers.
However, the reunion to end all reunions came courtesy of the Winter Haven Super Sox, who more than lived up to their name with seven Red Sox from the 1978 Topps set.
This same team included several other players with Beantown ties, among them Cecil Cooper, Gary Allenson, and Mario Guerrero. While the actual 1978 Red Sox won 99 games and missed the postseason by the narrowest of margins (BFD!), their 1990 redux went 29-43, landing firmly in the cellar of the Senior League’s Northern Division.
With the prices of unopened packs of 1978 Topps largely out of reach, the 1990 Pacific Senior League set may well represent my best chance to relive my first year in the Hobby. Sure there’s no Steve Garvey, Reggie Jackson, or Dave Parker, but let’s be honest…neither did most of the packs I opened as a kid. In truth the only thing that would break the illusion would be that the 1990 Pacific set has no Warren Brusstar, a player I seemingly pulled from every single pack of 1978 Topps.
Still, about half the cards I’d pull would have 1978 Topps counterparts, and if my math is correct a pack of 12 Pacific cards would have a (roughly) 50-50 chance of yielding at least one pair of 1978 Topps teammates. (I’m now tempted to buy a box and test this out.)
Of course, this article has only scratched the surface of all the interesting connections between 1978 Topps and 1990 Pacific Senior League, but rather than highlight all of them, only to end up with a SABR Bob Davids Award my shelf has no room for, I’m turning my source data over to you. Good luck in your research, and definitely feel free to write it up for our SABR Baseball Cards blog!
Author’s note #1: The 1990 Pacific Senior League set includes four cards with incorrect photos. My analysis was based on the name on the card rather than the actual player photographed.
Author’s note #2: Okay, just for kicks, I ran a simulation of buying six packs of Senior League cards using the random number generator at random.org. Let’s see if those predicted 1978 Topps teammates showed up.
Pack 1: SUCCESS!
Pack 2: FAILURE
Pack 3: SUCCESS!
Pack 4: SUCCESS!
Pack 5: SUCCESS!
Pack 6: SUCCESS!
Now if you’ll excuse me I’m heading to Bradenton to win some bar bets with a box of 1990 Pacific!
SABR's Baseball Cards Research Committee 